Skip to main content

Continuing Education At The Price of Sleep

So there has been a personal trend for me in my career over the past few weeks and I thought that it would be worth mentioning here. Many who follow personal finance have browsed through some of the major blogs and books that talk about a few themes that I strongly believe in:

1. Don't waste time. Time is a huge asset. Even people who do not have a job, they have something that is quite valuable: time. In short, even when unemployed, this is an opportunity to improve yourself and your skills. Put simply, whether or not you're working, it is really important to not waste time.

2. Remember your value. In short, the skills that you get in many jobs are skills that must be continually improved and refined. If you're not doing that, then you're setting yourself up to be in a bad place in the future when you're lagging behind your peers in the field.

For me, number two came home to roost this past year. I've been in my current position for some time and although I've been working hard, I have not been able to get any outside help and learn anything interesting to continue growing in my field. So, this means that I am going to be working behind the eight ball until I could fix it.

So, in order to fix it, I returned to some of my college texts and decided to review them. This sounds a bit corny, but I am one of the few people who actually went to school and ended up doing a job directly related to my degree. So that is pretty good I'd say. The reality is that things are not that outdated that my books that I already had (remember it is about being frugal when possible), were a bad starting point.

This served the goal of helping me get back into learning about my field and also serves the purpose of avoiding spending money until I am sure that I will commit. So, today I finished my first book and I am in the process of working on two others that were purchased. I expect that these will take longer since they are the first time though.

Now that I've gotten back into the habit, I am much happier. I feel like I am making some productive use out of my commute again and this makes me happy. The only cost appears to be the loss of some sleep :)

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On Buying a Lifestyle...with a Fixed-Rate Mortgage

Despite all of the back and forth about sub-prime mortgages and the housing bubble, I am feeling just fine. The reason is that when purchasing, I followed some old advice: Don't expect to flip. In general, I've been told by many people that you shouldn't buy a home unless you plan to hold on to it for 7 years or longer. If the market does well and you decide to sell, fine. But if you want to be sure not to lose money, don't buy something that you only want for a year or two. I've been in my current location for more than 3 years. I like it. And I have no intention of leaving in the short or medium term. It seems to me, that real estate, like any asset class, has its ups and downs. But as a practical point, I don't look at my home as an asset per se. Rather, I consider it to be a fixed expense that I need to survive, much like food and water. Therefore, as long as the payment is reasonable and it functions to keep me warm and sheltered and comfortable, that is a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Do Better With Your Time

Recently, I've been extremely busy with some work commitments. The interesting thing for me is that this increased work activity has really helped crystallize some of my feelings with regard to time. And these ideas are a critical part about my view on personal finance. I'm curious to know if others feel similarly. Time is money. That is, Time, in some way, contains energy. Money, is also energy. In the act of working, I am able to compound and increase the amount of money that I have. I am exchanging my time and effort and thought which are components of my work, for the productivity that I produce. And this production gets me money from my employer. However, the first dollars that I make each day, week, or month are the most valuable. Then the ones that I make at the end are the most valuable. (Forget about taxes for a minute.) The reason is, the first ones help me have a place to live and food to eat. And the last ones are the ones that I can use to really improve my life lo...
3 comments
Read more

Quantitative Easing Round Three

It appears that we have another round of Quantitative Easing in the works. If you've been listening to any of the money shows over the past several months, you'll note that most of the major players were not anticipating that! However, a recent update from the Bernanke indicates that the possibility of Quantitative Easing Round Three (QE3) is a very real one....but not in the near term. This article from International Business Times does a good job of explaining the thought process around a possible QE3 and why the timing is not likely to be now. All that being said, the CPI is up and the price of energy is skyrocketing. It is not an easy thing for people to get to work in cars that are not efficient. However, that is not stopping people from certain segments of the political/media spectrum from announcing dirty secrets about Clean Energy . I find that Google News has a great mix of stories from all over and this story -- the increased energy costs is certainly one to watc...
Post a Comment
Read more